Your recall protocols explained in detail

[Root Beer]

. . . and as usual discouraged by the massive variety in training approaches.

 

It might be helpful to you to just accept this as a given. There is a massive variety in training approaches out there, and their practitioners tend to be equally passionate about which is truly the best way to go (for many reasons - effectiveness, speed of results, longevity of results, personal preference, personal experience, etc. etc. etc.).

 

I very rarely ask for training advice online, but when I do, I am mentally prepared to sift through a lot of conflicting approaches and suss out what would be helpful to me and what I should discard. I thank everyone for their input and then do what is best for my dog. I usually get a "nugget" or two, but I also get a lot of suggestions that I would not follow for one reason or another.

[deadlywarbler]

Why don't you call her to you and then throw the ball when she gets to you? There are a number of ways that you could do this to actually reinforce the recall.

 

I definitely do this. It works pretty well, but the context is so different from a casual recall. She knows the context of what we are doing so well that her behaviors change dramatically. I am using the above method to increase her control. This is as much a reward for recall as it is a training exercise to start to be able to call her off things of interests. I realize that a distraction free zone with a ball a few feet away is very different from a running cat, so I"m starting small and hoping to make this one bullet proof. She's becoming very reactive, especially to animal noises, so I want this control. It's bizarre, often she will see other animals like dogs or cats and all is fine until they either bark or meow and then the switch has been flicked and she's in charge mode. Very concerning for me, so I do my best to keep her calm and control these times when I can. Anway, this is obviously my big issue right now, but best approached in a separate post so this one doesn't drift off topic

 

Root Beer, thanks for the insight. I supposed I will just have to take all the advice with a grain of salt and determine what will work best for the pup.

[rushdoggie]

There is also the teenage dog factor: adolescence is a tough time for them due to growth, hormones, maturity, etc. You can do everything right and your dogs can sometimes take a long time to be fluent and respond the way you want.

 

So don't despair if your 9 month old dog isn't working exactly the way you want, because so long as you are consistent, and fair, she will eventually get there.

 

Also, if your long line was heavy consider going to a lighter line and let her drag it a lot. Like all the time, so she becomes less attuned to its presence as a predictor of recall training time. I like to use cheap cord and then if it gets chewed, or work out so what. My non-Border Collie puppy wore his for a LONG time, because he was a real dork as an adolescent. He grew up eventually.

 

[rushdoggie]

Dear Doggers,

 

If they'll bond with the pack, they'll do what the pack does.

 

I will respectfully disagree to a point. My Border Collie who has a stellar recall and my young non- BC are the best of friends. They sleep together, share chewies, groom each other, and play together. Sometimes I called them and they run in together.

 

But then a possum lands on our fence and I call them and I only get a Border Collie. Or at the beach a dead, rotting fish was discovered, and only 2 of 3 dogs came when they were called.

 

So I had to teach, and reinforce a recall with him separately and not count on the pack teaching him.

[Sekah]

What I have started to do recently (and bare with me as I'm still a little confused and having a hard time finding a protocol to stick to consistently) is to use the ball sessions to work on recall. She's crazy about the ball. She also does a very reliable "wait" for the ball until I release her to get it. So what I do is put her in a down-wait about 15-20 ft. from me, toss the ball 20 ft. away and then make her come to me before going to get the ball. It's working and she's doing well with it. The only thing is that there's really no enthusiasm in it because there's no chasing the ball. Does this sound like a good approach?

 

The other thing I have done is introduce hand targeting with the clicker in the living room without distractions. She's very responsive to gestures, so I have a specific position that I hold my hand that signals her to come touch with her nose. I'm hoping once this gets more reliable I can use it from greater distances. Agreed?

 

The last thing I need to do, and this goes well beyond recall, is to get her back to responding to her name reliably. I think she's heard it so many times (and I wish I could shut off my constant blabbing) that its lost its value. This is partially for recall, but partially to stave off her growing reactivity, which I will address in another post.

 

As has already been pointed out, calling to you when you've placed the ball somewhere else is a proofing exercise. Proofing exercises are very useful, but they need to be used in conjunction with value-building exercises. There is a dog training adage of "grow the behaviour, test the behaviour" which would mean to build value for your recall, then begin to play with the boundaries of her understanding to help her generalize, then go back to building value. To focus too much on proofing means you're not focusing enough on building value. There's a balance to achieve that will vary from dog to dog.

 

Hand targeting is one of my favourite recall builders. I definitely used it to increase my off-leash control with both my Aussie and my Chihuahua. Other key off-leash control tools are cuing positions from a distance (sit/stand/down) with an implicit 'stay'. You want your dog to be keyed into what you're asking of her, and you may find a situation where she'll sit from a distance but may not necessarily wish to recall. Having that distance control in your toolbox will be helpful for possible emergency situations. Having a few different games to play while off leash will also keep you unpredictable and engaging for your pup. Sometimes you can play the recall game and run in the other direction, sometimes you can play the recall game and toss a ball, sometimes you can call for your dog to sit and then recall while running, sometimes you recall, collar-grab and then tug, etc.

 

Your dog's name should ideally trigger a head-swivel orientation plus recall. The way I've built my recall is that my dogs' names trigger a recall and when I need added 'oomph' I'll call for them to come too. If you've poisoned your recall cue and/or your dog's name you might want to start over from the beginning with a new word.

[B Point]

Tio is 14 months and I have a pretty good recall working...I whistle, he comes and gets a treat. It's not bombproof yet but he's on leash if there are too many temptations around.

[d112358]

What I have started to do recently (and bare with me as I'm still a little confused and having a hard time finding a protocol to stick to consistently) is to use the ball sessions to work on recall. She's crazy about the ball. She also does a very reliable "wait" for the ball until I release her to get it. So what I do is put her in a down-wait about 15-20 ft. from me, toss the ball 20 ft. away and then make her come to me before going to get the ball. It's working and she's doing well with it. The only thing is that there's really no enthusiasm in it because there's no chasing the ball. Does this sound like a good approach?

 

I would mix up having a second ball 'appear' out of nowhere for her to go chase when she passes up the distraction ball in the environment. This is like the proofing stage of 'leave it', you still want to reward from your hand rather than the floor most of the time.

 

Fetch is a great way to work on an enthusiastic come/collar grab if you have a dog that loves to chase the ball down - call them to you, grab their collar, then release and reward by throwing the ball. I have to be careful about my dog trying to take me out at the knees because she's better at enthusiasm than stopping.